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By Jaron Lanier Simon & Schuster, 2013, 396 pp.
Author and columnist Henry A Giroux says American democracy is in decay. 01/07/14 Robert Lorei Radioactivity: Live Call-In (Tuesday) | Tags: Henry A Giroux, Truthout.org Henry A Giroux Today on Radioactivity, Rob Lorei speaks with Henry A Giroux, columnist for Truthout.org and author who says the state of U.S. today has turned into an authoritarian one.

Henry Giroux articles: Beyond Savage Politics and Dystopian Nightmares America’s Descent Into Madness. An amazing map of the Koch brothers massive political network. On Monday, we took you inside one of the biggest political operations in the country – a sprawling network of politically active nonprofit groups backed by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch and other conservative donors.

Working with Robert Maguire, a researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics who tracks nonprofits, we calculated that a coalition of 17 groups raised at least $407 million in the 2012 election cycle. Much of that was spent on get-out-the-vote efforts and ads attacking President Obama and congressional Democrats. Tracing the flow of money required pouring through hundreds of pages of tax returns and mapping out the connections between the groups.
How Uncle Sam's Cash Is Funneled Into Abusive Sweatshops. The world was shocked last April when over 1,100 workers were killed in a building collapse in a Bangladesh garment factory.

Planet likely to warm by 4C by 2100, scientists warn. The role clouds play in climate change has been something of a mystery – until now.

Photograph: Frank Rumpenhorst/ Frank Rumpenhorst/dpa/Corbis Temperature rises resulting from unchecked climate change will be at the severe end of those projected, according to a new scientific study.
A Conversation with Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. Revolt.axismaps. Major Social Transformation Is a Lot Closer Than You May Realize. December 30, 2013 | Like this article?

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NAFTA-at-20.pdf. Charts: The Worst Long-Term Unemployment Crisis Since the Depression. Officially, the Great Recession of 2007 ended in June 2009.

Yet the economic downturn remains in full effect for millions of Americans, particularly the nearly 40 percent of the unemployed who have been looking for work for six months or more. In less than a week, emergency federal unemployment benefits for 1.3 million of these jobless Americans are set to run out.
NSA Hacking Tactics Revealed By Der Spiegel. LONDON (AP) — A German magazine lifted the lid on the operations of the National Security Agency's hacking unit Sunday, reporting that American spies intercept computer deliveries, exploit hardware vulnerabilities, and even hijack Microsoft's internal reporting system to spy on their targets.

Fela Kuti Live in Berlin - Berliner Jazztage 1978. Hawaiian: The Legend of Eddie Aikau trailer. Winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013. 2013: Wildlife Photographer of the Year Winners of the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition were just announced where more than 43,000 images from 96 countries were whittled down to just eighteen.

Now in its 49th year, the competition showcases the very best in nature photography and is led by two UK institutions, the Natural History Museum and BBC Worldwide. The overall grand prize went to photographer Greg du Toit from South Africa who took the magnificent, almost painterly photo (above), he calls Essence of Elephants.
In-Flight Movie! Aurora Flight Nov 2013. Profiting from the Poor: Outsourcing Social Services Puts Most Vulnerable at Risk. -- by Nick Surgey and Katie Lorenze Child sleeping on suitcase (Source: Shutterstock) In a story most in the media missed, protestors gathered under the dome at the Mississippi state capitol earlier this year to oppose a bill that would allow the state Department of Human Services (DHS) to privatize everything from child protective services to nutrition programs for the elderly.

The bill, HB 1009, which later passed, started out as a way to allow the Mississippi DHS to hire private contractors to collect child support payments -- something which Mississippi had flirted with in the past, with less than impressive results. From 1995-2000, a wealthy but little known firm called Maximus, Inc. had been hired to collect overdue child support payments in Mississippi and, according to a joint legislative committee report, on average, had higher costs but collected less in payments than the state did during the same five-year period.

New faculty positions versus new PhDs. : The missing piece to changing the university culture : Nature Biotechnology. Can you be too leftwing?
At the risk of making myself immediately unpopular, I don't think being too leftwing is likely to be a problem with many Guardian or Comment is free readers. You may think you're far out because you reuse shopping bags, but we'll see how you react to the expropriation of your property. How can one be "too leftwing"?
‘No conception of privacy’: Snowden to deliver alternative TV Christmas message. Frantz Fanon - The Wretched of the Earth. Winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013. Garment workers held boss captive until he paid promised bonus. David Byrne: 'The internet will suck all creative content out of the world'.

Awhile ago Thom Yorke and the rest of Radiohead got some attention when they pulled their recent record from Spotify. A number of other artists have also been in the news, publicly complaining about streaming music services (Black Keys, Aimee Mann and David Lowery of Camper van Beethoven and Cracker). Bob Dylan, Metallica and Pink Floyd were longtime Spotify holdouts – until recently.
There Is No Nobel Prize in Economics. October 12, 2012 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email.
De origine actibusque aequationis.

Laurie Anderson's Farewell to Lou Reed. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot's prison letters to Slavoj Žižek. 2 January 2013 Dear Nadezhda, I hope you have been able to organise your life in prison around small rituals that make it tolerable, and that you have time to read.
A Letter From Bill Moyers. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: Infographics Details. Think your plastic is being recycled? Think again.
Editorial: Hanford cleanup’s toxic legacy continues - Spokesman.com - Oct. 11. Close [X]
Pipeline Safety Tracker - ProPublica. Watch the video on Israeli racism The New York Times didn't want you to see. What If We Thought of ObamaCare as a New Model for Future Government Programs?
Author calls for fight to prevent extinction of the college prof. DULUTH, Minn. (PAI)-"Obstreperous" isn't a word often associated with a teacher, much less a college professor.

How'd Seattle Do It?
Yemeni Civil Engineer, Who Had Two Family Members Killed by Drone, to Address Congress Members. Jailed by Israel for his cartoons, Mohammad Saba’aneh speaks out. Imploding the Myth of Israel - Columns - Chris Hedges. Earning the Ticket: An Interview with Tarcilo Caldera, Oakland Port Trucker and POTA activist. Why You Should Never Have Taken That Prestigious Internship. In many states, the recovery is making the income gap worse. Switzerland’s Proposal to Pay People for Being Alive.

Garment workers held boss captive until he paid promised bonus. Growth is being driven by consumer credit and household debt, despite the need for exports and manufacturing. The men who set themselves on fire - Opinion. How a Bill Becomes Law - Updated. Chris Hedges and Robert Scheer Discuss American Fascism. Michelle Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow" - 2013 George E. Kent Lecture. Scorned or Celebrated, ‘Breadwinner Moms’ Are Misrepresented. The persecution of Barrett Brown - and how to fight it. Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves'
A Record Number of Americans Can’t Afford Their Rent. Slaves of the Internet, Unite!

Click farms are the new sweatshops. Are Economic Royalists Leading the US Over a Precipice?
Encore: America's Gilded Capital. Bill Moyers and Chris Hedges on Capitalism’s ‘Sacrifice Zones’
The Gates Foundation's Hypocritical Investments. S.H.A.M.E. Project › Shame the Hacks who Abuse Media Ethics...
Facebook and Microsoft help fund rightwing lobby network, report finds.

Jamie Dimon loses money, keeps job. Erik Prince Frontier Resource Group. Behind Every Great Fortune There Is a Crime. “The Heart of Everything That Is”: The Sioux’s brilliant, unsung leader. The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge. UK man tries to retrieve $7.5 million in bitcoins from dump. There's a £60m Bitcoin heist going down right now, and you can watch in real-time.